Nobel Peace Prize Winner History: Why it Was Once Rejected In 1973, one of the honorees refused to accept a Nobel Peace Prize + READ ARTICLE With the announcement Friday morning that the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet will be the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize , the number of Peace Prize laureates will tick up to 129 . That figure doesn’t match up with the number of years the prize has been given, as some years have multiple honorees and others–historically times of war–have none. But it also wouldn’t match up with the number of prizes announced. That’s because in 1973 Le Duc Tho became the first and only person ever to voluntarily refuse a Nobel Peace Prize. The prize had been awarded jointly to Tho, a North Vietnamese politician and diplomat, and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for their work negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam War. As TIME reported , the Nobel committee’s decision “aroused an unprecedented storm of criticism”: Only at the White House was the announcement greeted with unguarded praise.

Kissinger was unabashedly delighted; President Nixon, who might have hoped to win it himself, said that the award gave “deserved recognition to the art of negotiation itself in the process of ending a war and laying the groundwork for peace.” Hanoi, however, was resoundingly silent, lending substance to rumors that Tho would not accept the prize. The biggest reason for the controversy was the obvious one: despite Tho and Kissinger’s work, the war in Vietnam continued (as it would for more than a year after the Nobel announcement). And many argued that Tho and Kissinger had been just as responsible for creating war, not stopping it. One TIME reader wrote in to say that “The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho is like granting Xaviera Hollander (the Happy Hooker) an award for extreme virtue.” Though Tho would probably not have agreed with the second half of that argument, he did agree that Vietnam was not at peace—and, further, as the Nobel Committee puts it, “his opposite number had violated the truce.” He declined to accept the prize. He said that he might reconsider if peace were restored to his country eventually, but his decision stood.

But, as TIME noted in 1978 when Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin controversially received the prize, lasting peace was obviously not a prerequisite. Past winners included “Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, the French and German statesmen who won the 1926 prize for the ill-fated Locarno peace treaties, in which Belgium, France and Germany agreed never to fight again” and “American Diplomat Frank Kellogg, who was the originator of the utopian Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, in which 15 powers, including Germany and Japan, agreed to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.” The Nobel Peace Prize 1973 - Presentation Speech Presentation Speech The Nobel Peace Prize 1973 Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho Share this: Presentation Speech by Mrs. Aase Lionaes, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen: On January 23 of this year a ceasefire agreement was concluded between the United States of America and the Vietnamese Democratic Republic.

At its meeting on October 16 the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting decided to award the Peace Prize for 1973 to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the two chief negotiators who succeeded in arranging the ceasefire after negotiating for nearly four years. For many long and bitter years the civilian population of Vietnam and the fighting troops engaged on both sides had borne the sufferings and privations of war. This was a war that concerned not only Vietnam and its people; it was a war moreover that had poisoned the atmosphere in countries and between countries all over the world. Never since the conclusion of the Second World War have the people of Vietnam enjoyed unbroken peace. At the conclusion of the World War France was faced in Vietnam with a powerfully armed resistance movement under Communist leadership. Attempts to negotiate a solution to the problem of establishing and recognising an independent Vietnamese state proved unsuccessful. Open war broke out. Although the number of French troops involved amounted to close on 400,000, France failed to crush the opposition. After the defeat of France at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 a ceasefire agreement was concluded at Geneva. A military line of demarcation was drawn at the 17th parallel.

The intention was for the country subsequently to be unified after free elections had been held. This, however, was not to be: the new government in South Vietnam maintained that free elections could not be carried out under the Communist regime in the north. As a result two states emerged on the soil of Vietnam. Between 1954 and 1960 the two Vietnamese states took shape, a Communist state in the north and a non-Communist one in the south. In South Vietnam a guerilla movement, opposed to the government in power, came into being. In the course of 1960 its activities increased. At the end of that year a joint organisation and command was established in the National Liberation Movement, the FLN. It was acclaimed in North Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese government maintained that the FLN was operating under North Vienamese control. During the years that followed the South Vietnamese government failed to hold in check the increasing activities and influence of the FLN. It was also clear that attempts to create an effective administration and government in South Vietnam had failed. In 1964 decisions were made that resulted in the United States during the next few years, committing American armed forces to acts of war on Asian soil.

These troops were at that time engaged both in a civil war in South Vietnam and in a war between the two Vietnamese states. This took the form of a large-scale commitment of American forces on South Vietnamese soil, as well as air attacks on targets in North Vietnam and on supply lines, through Laos and Cambodia, for North Vietnamese troops. In March 1969 the number of American soldiers in Vietnam reached maximum figures of 541,500 men. The escalation of the American commitment was matched by a corresponding increase in North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. The world today is aware of the misery that the war has inflicted on the people of Vietnam. The mechanical inhumanity of modern warfare has gone hand in hand with the horrors of civil war. There is no need here to repeat the uncertain but chilling figures of the victims of this war - the dead and wounded, the orphans, prisoners of war, deportees, and homeless multitudes, fleeing from the theatre of war. The war proved a nightmare not only to the people of Vietnam but to the entire world. In 1969 the systematic withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam commenced.

By December 1972, out of a one-time total of half a million, only 27,000 were still left. But the war continued, with major offensives in South Vietnam and fresh aerial attacks on North Vietnam - the latter as late as in December of last year. Nevertheless, the negotiations for a ceasefire and peace in Vietnam, initiated in Paris in 1969, only suffered minor interruptions. Finally, on January 23 of this year the United States negotiator Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnam negotiator Le Duc Tho arrived at a ceasefire agreement, which they were able to sign on January 27. The Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting was fully aware that a ceasefire and not a peace agreement was involved. They realised that peace has not yet come to Vietnam, and that the sufferings of the population of Vietnam are not at an end. They were also aware that events in Vietnam may yet endanger the détente in the world. The ceasefire agreement was only the first but a tremendously important step on the laborious road to full peace in Vietnam.

It is our hope that the two chief negotiators and statesmen who have been awarded the Peace Prize this year will show the same understanding of the purpose and intention of the award as that expressed by Chancellor Willy Brandt in his speech here in this Festival Hall when he received the Peace Prize for 1971: "Nobel's Peace Prize is the highest honour, but at the same time the one that imposes the greatest obligations, that can be bestowed on any man bearing political responsibility." In his letter of November 2 to the Nobel Committee Henry Kissinger expresses his deep sense of this obligation. In the letter he writes among other things: "I am deeply moved by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, which I regard as the highest honor one could hope to achieve in the pursuit of peace on this earth. When I consider the list of those who have been so honored before me, I can only accept this award with humility. The people of the United States, and indeed of the whole world, share the hope expressed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that all parties to this conflict will feel morally responsible for turning the ceasefire in Vietnam into a lasting peace for the suffering peoples of Indochina.

Certainly my Government, for its part, intends to continue to conduct its policies in such a way as to turn this hope into reality." I feel convinced that all right-minded people will share the Nobel Committee's pleasure at this statement of Dr. Kissinger. The Nobel Peace Prize is often awarded to persons who do not have direct responsibility or share in the responsibility for the policy of governments, for peace or war among nations. It has been awarded to individuals and to organisations promoting cooperation between nations in the endeavour to create a better world - a world without hunger, a world of justice for workers, a world in which human rights are respected everywhere, a world without racial discrimination and racial antagonism. And the Prize has been awarded to persons filled with the dream of a world in which war is inconceivable. But Nobel's Peace Prize has also been awarded to persons exercising political responsibility and heavily committed to the confusing maelstrom of events. They were awarded the Peace Prize because in the course of their activities they had indicated the road that should be followed. No one could know whether this road would be followed; but they had lit a torch on the long and difficult road to peace among men.

They were awarded the Peace Prize because, within the framework of the politically possible, they championed a peace which, though it might not be perfect, was nevertheless a step along this road. In the present-day situation it might be useful to go right back to 1950, when the Prize was awarded to Ralph Bunche , the United Nations representative in Palestine, for his contribution in negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and the Arab states. On three occasions since the days of Ralph Bunche - in 1956, in 1967, and now once again in 1973 - the ceasefire has been superseded by open war in the Middle East. The road he indicated by his own actions was not followed. Today, finally, after the fourth war in the Middle East, there are prospects that the new ceasefire, as Bunche had hoped, could form the basis of a peace which would provide lasting security to all the people living in this part of the world. In 1971 the Prize was awarded to a responsible statesman, Chancellor Willy Brandt, for his personal contribution to a détente, and to a policy of cooperation in Europe.

He had succeeded in convincing the majority of the German people that the basis for a policy of peace and negotiation in Europe must be a recognition of the actual power relationship in Europe, and in this way of the fact that two German states are now in existence on German soil. This was not a perfect solution. But as a responsible statesman and the leader of a nation in the heart of Europe Willy Brandt opted for the peace policy which was the only possible one. In awarding the Prize in 1973 as well to two responsible politicians at the centre of events, the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting emphasises its belief that the approach to a solution of the many controversies that have led to or may lead to war must be via negotiations, not through total war aiming at total victory. The two negotiators who were awarded the Prize represent widely differing systems - one an essentially western system, such as the one in which our own Storting functions, the other a Communist system. We are under no illusion that the differences between systems and ideologies can be ignored; but the Nobel Committee has been anxious to emphasise that in a world yearning for peace, no one can assume the right to force his particular system on others by armed might.

Nations with different systems of government must be able to live together in peace and solve their controversies by negotiation. Le Duc Tho has informed the Committee that at present he is not in a position to be able to accept the Prize, giving as his reason the present situation in Vietnam. In accordance with current regulations the Committee has been able to withhold the Prize until October 1, 1974. It hopes that conditions in Vietnam will develop in accordance with the aims of the ceasefire concluded on January 23, and this will make it possible for him to accept the Prize. This year Henry Kissinger was appointed Secretary-of-State in the United States. In his letter to the Committee he writes as follows: "I greatly regret that because of the press of business in a world beset by recurrent crisis I shall be unable to come to Oslo on December 10 for the award ceremony. I have accordingly designated Ambassador Byrne to represent me on that occasion. However, I would hope and consider it a privilege, should you so wish, to visit Oslo at a future appropriate date to deliver the lecture which I understand is customarily given by Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize." The Committee is, of course, aware of Dr.

Kissinger's burden of work this autumn. Nevertheless they profoundly regret that he was unable to come here today to receive the Prize in person. We are looking forward to hearing his lecture at a later date. Henry A. Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923 of Jewish parents. In 1938 his family escaped to the United States. His father, who had been a teacher, worked in an office in New York. Henry Kissinger was called up for military service in 1943, and became an American citizen. He took part in the concluding military operations in Europe, and was responsible for the administration of a small South German town administered by the occupying allied powers. In 1946 he won a scholarship for study at Harvard University. In 1954 he received his doctor's degree for a thesis on the European peace settlement after the Napoleonic Wars. In the 1950s he conducted a study group at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. This group analysed the relations of the USA to the Soviet Union, in particular problems of military security in the nuclear age.

In 1957 he returned to Harvard, where he was appointed professor in 1962. In the 1950s and likewise in the 1960s he wrote a great deal on various political subjects. He also carried out research projects for President Eisenhower and President Kennedy. Without associating himself with any party he also helped to draw up Nelson A. Rockefeller's programme during the presidential election of 1968. After 1968 he worked in an advisory capacity for President Nixon. From January 1969 he was to play a central role as advisor to the President on questions of national security. In 1973 he was appointed Secretary-of-State. In all Dr. Kissinger's writing we catch sight of a basic attitude which made him particularly suited to the role he was destined to play in 1969. This attitude emerges already in local German accounts of his conduct as an American administrative officer in 1945-46.

People still remember the way in which this young German-Jewish emigré, who returned to the land of his birth seven years later, wearing an American uniform, and seventeen of whose relations had been murdered under the Nazis, made it clear at once: "We have not come to take our revenge." This attitude reveals an early developed concept of the relations between people and nations, an attitude which tolerated no fanaticism - not even in a young man of German-Jewish blood, not even in his dealings with a people that had allowed fanatics to plunge them into a moral abyss. In his doctoral thesis Kissinger deals with the protracted period of peace that reigned in Europe after 1814, a period that lasted with infrequent warlike interruptions for a hundred years, right up to 1914. In dealing with this period many historians emphasise exclusively the military balance of power: no single great power was militarily strong enough to endeavour to dominate the whole of Europe - as Napoleon had done before 1814 and Germany was to do after 1914.

Kissinger, on the other hand, places a great deal of emphasis on the fact that peace was bound up with an international order, based on universally accepted principles for the behaviour of states in their relations to one another. In those days, too, political systems differed widely, and the great powers had a great many conflicting interests. But by and large they respected these principles and rules, and on this basis they tried to prevent differences of systems and interests leading to war. It was therefore quite natural that Kissinger should place very great emphasis on diplomacy as a factor for the promotion of peace as well, diplomacy both as a profession and as an art. The overriding idea in Kissinger's views on foreign policy is that peace must be based on rules to which all states, at any rate the great powers, adhere in their conduct. It is not sufficient for one single state, or a number of states, to do so. On the contrary, a dangerous situation may arise if some states desire peace at any price and fail to ensure that other states, too, adhere to the rules.

In his doctoral thesis he expressed this as follows: "Whenever peace - conceived as the avoidance of war - has been the primary objective of a power or a group of powers, the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community." A policy of this kind could lead to war, and the most frightening example was the Munich agreement of 1938, in which the western powers sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler. There were people who believed that as the result of this deal peace would be secured "for our lifetime". At the time there was a failure to understand that Hitler entirely ignored all the rules of the game in international relations. It goes without saying that in the case of a man with Kissinger's background the experiences of the 1930s were bound to set their mark on his thinking. Whenever political extremists acquired power in a state, they were dangerous, in his opinion, because they were unwilling to accept any permanent rules in relationships between states. For this reason he looked with profound misgiving at the Communist governments, and this was to affect his thinking with regard to the situation in the West and its security in the 1950s.

At the same time, however, he was aware, at an earlier stage than most people, of the dangers to mankind that the new atomic arms involved. He was concerned with the problem of how the United States and Western Europe would be able to defend themselves without having recourse to supremely absurd means - strategic atomic arms. He pinned his hopes on the thought that in the age of atomic arms all great powers must realise that their most important task is to prevent the outbreak of nuclear warfare. It was of vital importance to them to realise this, no matter what political systems and ideologies they represented. But recognition of this fact would also of necessity compel them to develop a new relationship to one another, a new system based on universally accepted rules, as had been the case in Europe prior to 1914. This was Kissinger's working hypothesis, the basis of his great experiment in foreign policy. In a world of this kind the United States should not, in his opinion, try to play the role of "world policeman". The other powers, first and foremost the Soviet Union and China, should be invited to join in as equal partners, enjoying the same rights in this policy and with the same responsibility for peace in the world.

Kissinger is no technocrat: when he set out on his journeys to Moscow and Peking after 1969 he had no cut-and-dried solutions to the problems, devised at his desk in Washington. He approached these problems with his working hypothesis, his message, his queries. This great experiment indicates a way out of the world situation created by the Second World War and the Cold War. The policy Kissinger has attempted to put into effect since 1969 is closely bound up with the ideas he had arrived at long before 1969. No one is in any doubt as to his personal contribution to the policy of détente. In a recent interview he made it quite clear that it is precisely because they have conflicting interests and different systems and ideologies that it has become imperative to seek a détente in the relationship between the great powers. This is why it is so important to reduce the danger of nuclear warfare. The détente provides governments with opportunities to negotiate, and to act swiftly when required, as well as the opportunity to show moderation. This was emphasised in connection with the crisis in the Middle East. This year's Nobel Prize winner has been called a realist.

He cautions against the markedly ideological and emotionally conditioned approach in foreign policy, in his own country as well. This realism of his is deeply rooted in a considered conviction, a fundamental ethical attitude which has remained unshaken through changing times and situations. His preoccupation has been the responsibility of the statesman in an imperfect and multifarious world, full of danger. Now he himself bears the burden of such responsibility. In the years that lie ahead we shall know how far his experiment will take us on the road to a safer world. But this depends not only on Henry Kissinger, nor only on the United States. One of the touchstones in the conflict is the Middle East; another touchstone is the conflict in Vietnam. Here the result depends on all parties involved in the conflict, both the states in the actual area of conflict and the superpowers who are involved. In our part of the world, too, in Europe, negotiations are at present going on for a détente, security and cooperation within the global framework which this great experiment has provided. Today a handful of great statesmen are sitting down at the conference table, deciding the question of war and peace in the world.

But the millions of people whose fate is at stake cannot allow the politicians to carry the burdens and responsibility alone. By means of an active and positive world opinion we must make our contribution to the fulfilment of our hopes for peace. Irrespective of national boundaries the peoples of this world, and not least the peace organisations, must speak with one voice, the voice of peace, so loudly that the politicians are forced to listen. There are people today who cynically shrug their shoulders at negotiated agreements. This is an amoral, nay, a dangerous attitude. Ceasefire agreements between states must not be called in question, they must not be interpreted merely as paper resolutions, but as a moral and inviable obligation between the states that have signed them. Only with an honest approach of this kind to the intentions and obligations of international agreements can they help us along the road to peace. The peace at which we must aim must not be limited merely to the avoidance of military conflict.

Real peace in the world can only mean that all of us, in every country, should make it possible for people, irrespective of race, religion, ideology, or nationality, to live a life free from fear, free from violence, free from terrorism - a life in which the fundamental human rights are the secure and imperishable possession of every single human being. From Nobel Lectures , Peace 1971-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997 Le Duc Tho - Facts Le Duc Tho The Nobel Peace Prize 1973 Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho Share this: Born: 14 October 1911, Nam Ha province, Vietnam Died: 13 October 1990, Hanoi, Vietnam Residence at the time of the award: Democratic Republic of Vietnam Field: negotiation Le Duc Tho declined the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prize share: 1/2 Refused the Peace Prize Le Duc Tho had had long experience of fighting against great powers when he negotiated with Henry Kissinger for an armistice in Vietnam between 1969 and 1973. As a young man he became a Communist, and the French colonial authorities imprisoned him for many years. He gained a place in the Communist Party's leadership during Japan's occupation of Vietnam in the Second World War. Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independent after the defeat of Japan in 1945, but the French returned, and Le Duc Tho became one of the military leaders of the resistance against the French. After the defeat of the French, Vietnam was divided. The USA supported a government in South Vietnam which the Communists in the north regarded as an American puppet government. When the United States decided to negotiate after 1968, Le Duc Tho was appointed North Vietnam's chief negotiator, confronting Henry Kissinger. When Hanoi was bombed at Christmastime on Kissinger's orders, Le Duc Tho agreed to an armistice.

But when he received the Peace Prize together with Kissinger in the autumn of 1973, he refused to accept it, on the grounds that his opposite number had violated the truce. Copyright © The Norwegian Nobel Institute Share this: To cite this page Sartre's 'Non' to Nobel prize came too late, say reports Sartre's 'Non' to Nobel prize came too late, say reports Peter Harmsen Pin it Share Jean-Paul Sartre, pictured in Paris in 1971, sent a letter declining the Nobel Prize for Literature but it arrived too late (AFP Photo/) More Stockholm (AFP) - A letter sent by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964 declining the Nobel Prize for Literature came too late to avert one of the biggest debacles in its history, Swedish media reported Saturday. Sartre's letter arrived nearly a month after he had been picked as the top choice by the Nobel Committee, the daily Svenska Dagbladet reported, based on archival material made available at the end of a customary 50-year period of secrecy.

The report throws light on the sequence of events leading to Sartre's decision to become the only person to willingly turn down the world's most prestigious literary prize. Sartre later explained that he had "always declined official honours", including the French Legion of Honour in 1945, as it would limit his independence and institutionalise him. It had been widely speculated that Sartre's letter asking not to be considered for the award had been too late, but only now is this backed up with actual historical evidence. Sartre, who had been mentioned as a likely candidate for several years, sent his letter to the Nobel Foundation on October 14, 1964, saying he would not be able to accept the prize "either in 1964 or in the future", according to the paper. However, the Nobel Committee for Literature had agreed on Sartre as the top candidate on September 17, the paper said. In principle the decision on the year's winner had already been taken, Sartre was told in a reply from the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize.

- Historic debacle - Consequently, when the Swedish Academy met on October 22, 1964, its 18 members decided to follow the committee's recommendations and award the prize to Sartre -- who, good as his word, refused it. Had Sartre's letter arrived before the committee met in mid-September, it is likely that the award would have gone to someone else, Svenska Dagbladet reported. Some of the committee's members were ambivalent about Sartre's literary merits, and a letter from the famous Frenchman would have given them an additional argument against him, the paper said. There is only one known case of a Nobel being refused in advance: Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt succeeded in persuading the members of the jury not to award it to him in 1919, but he had the unfair advantage of being a member of the jury himself. He later won the prize posthumously in 1931 at a time when death was not a barrier to becoming a laureate.

In 1958, Soviet writer Boris Pasternak was awarded the literature prize for his novel Doctor Zhivago and other works, but the Kremlin forced him to decline the honour. The only other laureate to willingly refuse the Nobel was Vietnamese prime minister Le Duc Tho, who did not want to share the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for negotiating the end of the Vietnam War. Reblog Saying 'No' to Nobel: Sartre's famous refusal turns 50 Saying 'No' to Nobel: Sartre's famous refusal turns 50 Hugues HONORE Pin it Share French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, pictured in Paris on February 15, 1971, was the first person to turn down a Nobel Prize (AFP Photo/) More Stockholm (AFP) - What brings more fame than accepting the Nobel Prize? Not accepting it -- as Jean-Paul Sartre showed with a celebrated "non" to the world's most prestigious award exactly 50 years ago.

When the Swedish Academy made the announcement on October 22, 1964 that the French philosopher had won the prize for literature, he was lunching at a restaurant near the Parisian home of fellow intellectual heavyweight Simone de Beauvoir. He told a young AFP journalist, Francois de Closets -- who had been the first to break the news to him -- that he had no intention of accepting the honour. "I refuse the prize, that's a fact, but I must reserve my explanations for the Swedish press," the existentialist thinker said. At the time, AFP wrote that "the announcement of his selection by the jury in Stockholm did not seem to surprise him or provoke any emotion". Sartre's lengthy statement, detailing the reasons for his "non" to the Nobel -- read out to journalists at the French embassy in Stockholm later that day -- created a sensation as it was the first time in the prize's then 63-year history that someone had turned it down. However the decision was fully in keeping with his character and convictions, according to philosopher and Sartre expert Andre Guigot. "He had two basic genuine reasons. First of all he was afraid of being considered a spent force before completing his life's work.

He called it the kiss of death," he said. "And secondly, he had based his thinking on criticism of all institutions, which he considered suffocating." The only problem -- as Sartre soon discovered -- was that the Nobel regulations have no opt-out clause for laureates who refuse the prize. - 'Carved in stone' - "The Swedes were clear from the beginning. If Sartre refused the prize, it was no concern of the Academy. He had been selected and his name was going to be carved in stone," said Antoine Jacob, a former AFP reporter and author of "History of the Nobel Prizes". So the French writer remains officially the 1964 Nobel literature laureate, despite snubbing the traditional award ceremony, and leaving 273,000 Swedish kronor (worth nearly $380,000, 300,000 euros today) untouched. In his statement the author of the existential play "No Exit"(Huis Clos) with its iconic phrase "Hell is other people", said the decision was not a criticism of the Nobels.

He wrote that he had "always declined official honours", including the French Legion of Honour in 1945, as it would limit his independence and institutionalise him. "It would not be the same thing if I sign my name Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel laureate," he said. Even before the award became official, media speculation had mounted that Sartre was shortlisted for the prize. After a particularly optimistic forecast in the newspaper Le Figaro, he wrote directly to the Swedish Academy in an attempt to evade the impending award. "According to certain information that I have become aware of today, I would appear to have a certain chance of obtaining the Nobel prize," he wrote. "For both personal and other reasons of a more objective nature I do not wish to appear on the list of potential laureates. Be it in 1964 or later, I cannot, nor do I wish to, accept this honorary award." - 'Very bourgeois attitude' - It was no secret that Sartre, aged 59 at the time, was well placed to win the Nobel.

His autobiography "The Words" had come out in January that year, adding an intimate touch to his substantial output of plays, novels and philosophical works. Legend has it that his letter requesting to be spared the honour of a Nobel did not reach the academy's permanent secretary Anders Oesterling on time. But others have speculated that Sartre's name may have already been decided before the letter arrived. There is only one known case of a Nobel being refused in advance: Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt succeeded in persuading the members of the jury not to award him in 1919, but he had the unfair advantage of being a member of the jury himself. He later won the prize posthumously in 1931 at a time when death was not a barrier to becoming a laureate. But 50 years later the iconic French philosopher's Nobel snub is still controversial in some circles -- either seen as evidence of his strong convictions or his pride. "It's a subject that still provokes discussion today. Because ultimately it's a very bourgeois attitude to refuse a prize," said Sartre expert Guigot.

"Albert Camus, who came from a completely different (poorer) background accepted it, because he knew its value." The only other laureate to willingly refuse the Nobel was Vietnamese prime minister Le Duc Tho, who did not want to share the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Reblog Nobel Prize History Nobel Prize History History of the world's most famous prizes by Beth Rowen Wangari Maathai (2004, Kenya) Winning a Nobel Prize is a life-changing honor. Whether the laureate is an internationally known figure (such as Mother Teresa or Barack Obama , winners of the 1979 and 2009 Peace Prize , respectively) or a scientist plucked from obscurity (like Richard R. Ernst , who won the 1991 prize in chemistry for refinements in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy), the award brings with it worldwide recognition that highlights one's life work and provides the funds to continue and further the mission. For academics and institutions, a Nobel Prize is used to attract the best and the brightest minds, whether students or scholars.

2016 Nobel Prizes Peace Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) "for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end." (See also: Past winners in Nobel Peace Prizes .) Physiology or Medicine (See also: Past winners in Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prizes .) Physics Jointly to David J. Thouless (U.K.) and F. Duncan M. Haldane (U.K.) J. Michael Kosterlitz (U.K.) "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter." (See also: Past winners in Nobel Prizes in Physics .) Chemistry Jointly to Jean-Pierre Sauvage (France), Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (U.K.), and Bernard L. Feringa (Netherlands) "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines." (See also: Past winners in Chemistry Nobel Prizes .) Literature (See also: Past winners for Literature Nobel Prizes .) Economics (See also: Past winners in Economics Nobel Prizes .) Industrialist With a Conscience Alfred B.

Nobel (1833–1896), the Swedish chemist and engineer who invented dynamite , left $9 million in his will to establish the Nobel Prizes, which are awarded annually, without regard to nationality, in six areas ( peace , literature , physics , chemistry , physiology or medicine , and economic science ) "to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." At first glance, it seems odd that the inventor of a powerful explosive would endow a group of awards that includes a peace prize. But Nobel was an industrialist with a conscience. He is credited with creating a controllable combustible that made blasting rock and the construction of canals and tunnels a relatively safe process. Nobel also contributed to the inventions of synthetic rubber, artificial silk, and synthetic leather. He held more than 350 patents. His interests were not limited to science. In fact, he was a lover of English literature and poetry and wrote several novels and poems. At his death, he left a library of more than 1,500 books, from fiction to philosophy.

Family Members Contest Last Wishes Family members were shocked when they learned that Nobel had dictated that his fortune be used to establish the Nobel Prizes. They contested his will, but his final wishes were executed and the first awards were distributed in 1901, on the fifth anniversary of his death. The prize in economics, however, was established in 1968 by Riksbank, the Swedish bank, in honor of its 300th anniversary. Stockholm's Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences administers the award in physics and chemistry, the Royal Caroline Medical Institute awards the prize in physiology or medicine, and the Swedish Academy oversees the prize in literature. The Norwegian Storting , or parliament, awards the peace prize. The Peace Prize The first female Nobel Peace prize winner, Baroness Bertha von Suttner , in 1905, was perhaps the inspiration for the award itself. Von Suttner, who organized the Austrian Peace Society and wrote the landmark anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms, was a close friend of Alfred Nobel.

When he established the peace prize, he wrote that it should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"—precisely the work the Baroness had been engaged in. In 2014, Malala Yousafzai , the 17-year-old Pakistani activist who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for promoting the education of women, shared the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the youngest recipient of a Nobel Prize. The Prizes Each winner of a Nobel Prize, which can go to individuals and institutions, takes home a medal, a diploma, and cash, which varies each year and depends on the income earned on the Nobel Foundation fund. In 2008, winners recipients receive 10 million Swedish kroners, or about $1.72 million. The awards process begins an entire year before the awards are announced, with the administers of the awards inviting nominations from the fall through January 31 of the next year. On February 1, the six committees begin considering nominees and make recommendations to the prize-awarding subcommittees in September and early October.

The winners must be announced by November 15. Nobel week begins in early October. The Nobel Prizes are awarded on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. Posthumous nominations for the prizes are not allowed. This has sparked controversy, with critics saying that people who deserved a Nobel Prize did not receive one because they died before being nominated. In two cases the Prize has been awarded posthumously to people who were nominated when they were still alive. This was the case with UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld (1961, Peace Prize) and Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931, Literature)—both of whom were awarded the prize in the years they died. Since 1974, awards have not been allowed for a deceased person. William Vickrey (1996, Economics) died before he could receive the prize, but after it was announced. Turning Down the Prize Prizes are not automatically awarded each year. They can be withheld if there are no worthy candidates or when a world situation makes awarding the prizes impractical. Because of World War II, no awards were given from 1940–1942. Prizes can also be declined.

Even if a prize is declined, the winner is entered in the books, but the cash gift reverts back to the fund. In 1937, Hitler issued a decree that forbade Germans from accepting Nobel Prizes. He considered pacifist journalist Carl von Ossietzky 's 1935 peace prize a slap in the face. In 1973 Le Duc Tho refused the Nobel Peace Prize as he did not believe peace had been reached in Vietnam. Did you know? The Nobel Peace Prize: Why did Obama win? The Nobel Peace Prize: Why did Obama win? The Week Staff 10 things you need to know today Today's best articles The week's best photojournalism Daily business briefing In a mindless spasm of fawning, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has turned the world’s most prestigious award into “a laughingstock,” said Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. The committee’s “embarrassing” decision to award this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, nine accomplishment-free months into his presidency, both cheapens the award and puts “the young president in a terrible place.” He was chosen for one reason: He’s not George W. Bush.

Obama himself acknowledged the sheer weirdness of his selection, saying he didn’t feel he deserved to be in the same company as such “transformative figures” as Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. That’s why Obama should have turned down the prize, said Ross Douthat in The New York Times. Saying no thanks would have offended no one but the five silly Norwegians who selected him. And it would have signaled that he wanted no part of the “messianic hoo-hah” that has so far accompanied—and impeded—his presidency. Actually, it’s possible this award is both “premature and thoroughly deserved,” said Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. Though his efforts have yet “to bear real fruit,” Obama has opened a new dialogue with the Muslim world, and replaced Bush’s unilateral belligerence with a foreign policy of diplomatic engagement that respects the interests and views of other nations. In so doing, our first African-American president has already given literally billions of people new hope. In the past, the Nobel Committee has often given the prize as an encouragement rather than as a reward, said Lanny Davis in The Washington Times.

In 1973 it went to Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho to encourage their truce negotiations. In 1994, it went to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat to preserve momentum in the Middle East peace process. How sad that “Obama-haters” on the extreme Right refuse to understand that. Obama deserves credit for taking a new “tone,” said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com, but you shouldn’t get a Nobel for making speeches. This so-called man of peace is still authorizing airstrikes that kill Afghan and Pakistani civilians, and has yet to shut down Bush’s system of secret prisons, in which hundreds of souls languish in misery. Obama will only earn his Nobel when he stops acting like Bush. That’s clearly what the Nobel Committee was hoping, said Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online. As well as being “at least partly a slap at pre-Obama America,” the award is “probably also an attempt to avert war with Iran,” by inflating Obama’s image of himself as a Gandhi-like peacemaker who chooses nonviolence at every turn. If so, the plan may backfire, said Ronald Krebs in The Washington Post.

At home, the Nobel actually hurts Obama, adding to a growing number of Americans’ suspicions that he is “an ultra-liberal” who cares “more deeply about global causes than vital U.S. interests.” To allay these fears, Obama may actually pursue a more muscular and hawkish foreign policy. He shouldn’t overcompensate, said Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. But Obama should use this opportunity to remind the Nobel Committee, and the world in general, of how peace has historically been achieved and maintained. When he ascends the podium in Oslo in December, he should refuse to accept the peace prize on his own behalf, but “accept it on behalf of the most important peace­keepers in the world for the last century—the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.”

Question: Who is the only person to refuse a Nobel Peace prize (in 1973)?
Answer: Le Duc Tho